1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording device for recording letters, images or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
Referring first to FIG. 15, it is a sectional view of a conventional recording device.
As shown in this Figure, a sheet feeding cassette 101 provided in a lower portion of the main assembly of the recording apparatus stores a number of recording sheets, which are fed out one by one, as is widely used. The sheet feeding cassette 101 is slidable to and fro, and the user loads the recording material at the front side of the recording device. The feeding path for the recording material is U-fold, and U-turn feeding rollers 102, 103 feed the sheet fed toward the rear, toward the front side to supply it for subjecting to the recording operation of the recording head 104. The recording material having been subjected to the recording operation is fed to the front side of the recording device by the sheet discharging roller 105 and then to the sheet discharge tray 106.
With such a structure, the user can take the printed sheets at the front side of the recording device.
In this case, the sheet feeding cassette 101 and the sheet discharge tray 106 are both disposed at the front side of the recording device, they are close to each other, and various structures are proposed for providing a sufficient space therefor, simplicity of the structure or an operativity.
However, the conventional structure in which the sheet feeding cassette and the sheet discharge tray are both disposed at the front side may involve the problems as follows.
From the standpoint of downsizing the apparatus, the areas for the sheet feeding cassette and the sheet discharge tray are common as much as possible. However, from the standpoint of operationality, the users operations do not interfere under the user's operating conditions. For example, the sheet discharge tray should not disposed in the region occupied when the sheet feeding cassette is slid to and fro, or the region required for loading the recording material. Otherwise, the user has to retract the sheet discharge tray in order to load the recording material. It is desirable that sheet feeding cassette and the sheet discharge tray do not interfere with each other particularly in the sliding direction of the sheet feeding cassette. As a result, the height required by the recording device is at least a sum of the heights of the sheet feeding cassette and the sheet discharge tray. In addition, a height is required for a number of sheets stacked on the sheet discharge tray. For such reasons, the downsizing of the recording apparatus is difficult.
On the other hand, if the priority is put on the downsizing in the height direction at the cost of the operativity by disposing the sheet feeding cassette and the sheet discharge tray are provided at the same level, it is not possible to extend the sheet feeding cassette since the sheet discharge tray is disposed at the front side of the sheet feeding cassette. Therefore, the size of the sheet feeding cassette has to be the same as the depth of the main assembly of the recording apparatus. This results in the difficulty in providing the main assembly of the recording apparatus having a small depth and the usability of large size recording materials.